Just one more aspect to add to the other replies that I didn’t see mentioned: the most common use of this is with online multiplayer games like Mobas (lol, dota2) or ability/arena shooters (overwatch, valorant), where the developer will actually make changes to the balance, or add/remove items, heroes, … Here “the meta” will often shift with any major patch. As an example, they might adjust the items that give health and/or armor because front liners aren’t effective enough, and maybe they overtune it a bit, leading to a “tank meta” because now tanky characters can fulfill roles they weren’t even intended for (just as a random example).
But also things like tabletop games (Warhammer) have seasonal rulesets where this can apply.
It can even apply to Singleplayer games like Baldurs Gate 3 (as a recent example). In these cases the meta often refers to very efficient, good working character builds (class selection, level order and items) that have usually been figured out by the community over time. In that case the meta is generally more fixed or stable, as the game doesn’t receive maybe balance updates every few months.
Just one more aspect to add to the other replies that I didn’t see mentioned: the most common use of this is with online multiplayer games like Mobas (lol, dota2) or ability/arena shooters (overwatch, valorant), where the developer will actually make changes to the balance, or add/remove items, heroes, … Here “the meta” will often shift with any major patch. As an example, they might adjust the items that give health and/or armor because front liners aren’t effective enough, and maybe they overtune it a bit, leading to a “tank meta” because now tanky characters can fulfill roles they weren’t even intended for (just as a random example).
But also things like tabletop games (Warhammer) have seasonal rulesets where this can apply.
It can even apply to Singleplayer games like Baldurs Gate 3 (as a recent example). In these cases the meta often refers to very efficient, good working character builds (class selection, level order and items) that have usually been figured out by the community over time. In that case the meta is generally more fixed or stable, as the game doesn’t receive maybe balance updates every few months.